Si 



Custer 
battlefield 




BURLINGTON ROUTE 



Burlington 
Route 




%ORT CUSTER mid Crow Agency, 



^ Montana, are the two points on the 
Burlington Route s New Short Line from 
which Custer Battlefield is easily and 
pleasantly reached. TJie distance from 
the former is about thirteen miles; from 
the latter about two and a half miles. At 
both places holders of through tickets are 
allowed stop-over privileges, and good 
hotels and livery stables are to be found. 

Between Crow Agency and Garryowen, 
a flag station six miles south, a really 
excellent view of the battlefield is had 
front the car windows of passing trains. 
Custer Monument is little, if any, more 
than a mile away' and the intervening 
space is dotted witji the glistening slabs 
that mark the last res-ting places of the 
brave troopers of the Seventh. 





MAJOR - GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER. 



O PEN PICTURE can adequately 



upon which the fighting took place. But 
the story is plainly told, though no living 
witness has told it. Poor Custer was the 
victim of misinformation, but it is unjust 
to his memory to say that he was reck- 
less or foolish. He had been a major- 
general of volunteers, with a splendid 
reputation as a cavalry fighter, and on 
this expedition he was lieutenant-colonel 
and in command of the Seventh Cavalry. 
He was in disfavor at Washington. He 
was anxious to distinguish himself in bat- 
tle. In the advance of Terry's expedi- 
tion he had been pushing for some days 
on the trail of a band of Southern Wy- 
oming Indians marching to join Sitting 
Bull's uprising. He knew from the size 
of the trail that he had from twelve hun- 




formation of the field 



dred to fifteen hundred hostiles to deal 
with. His scouting must have been poor, 
for when the Indian village was located 
he determined not only to attack, but to 
capture the entire band. 

Reserving five companies to himself 
he placed four companies under com- 
mand of Major Reno to move on his left 
flank and two companies under Captain 
Benteen, who was to work around to the 
Indian right and was to bag the enemy 
when the stampede began. With these 
dispositions he moved around the point 
of the range which brought him into the 
view of the enemy, forded the creek and 
was at once engaged. Instead of finding 
himself confronted by twelve hundred 
Pawnees under Santana he found him- 
self in a death-grapple with not less than 
five thousand Sioux and Cheyenne war- 
riors. It is in evidence that the Indians 
had broken up their villages and were 
preparing to decamp when they discov- 
ered that they only had " horse soldiers" 
to deal with. At the very outset Custer 
threw out a strong skirmish line. Every 
member of the gallant band was slain 
and the little marble stones which mark 
the spots where these brave men fell are 
beautifully aligned. As the main body 



moved into action great masses of the 
enemy rose in front of Custer and swung 
around to his rear. 

On the first hillside he divided his 
command and sent two troops, number- 
ing sixty men, down the left side of the 
confronting ridge, while he kept to the 
right on almost parallel lines, advancing 
into a dry ravine. Here he met with 
terrible opposition, and from this time 
on he struggled to get upon the high 
ground, steadily advancing. With his 
thinned ranks — the slaughter became 
terrible — he reached the spot where he 
met his death. At this point the sepa- 
rated command could see him, and the 
poor doomed fellows made a heroic effort 
to reach him. They fell in groups of 
fours, by twos and singly. You can count 
the little marble stones, sixty in number. 
Could anything be more pitiful ? At the 
same instant the little group rallied 
around Custer was being annihilated. 
From the low ground in front of the gal- 
lant leader rose a thousand fierce Chey- 
ennes under the satanic Rain-in-the-Face. 
Not a life was spared. By Custer's side 
his brother Tom fell. Then it was that 
Rain-in-the-Face, who had sworn to eat 
Tom Custer's heart because as officer of 



the day at some camp the lieutenant had 
one day placed the villainous chief in the 
guardhouse, ripped open the poor fellow's 
body and tearing therefrom the reeking 
heart made good his savage oath. 

All was now silent save for the demo- 
niacal and exultant cries of the savages. 
The remains of the brave Custer were 
not disturbed, but every other body upon 
that field was hacked and mutilated in 
the most horrible manner. 

This is the story of the battle as inter- 
preted by the insensible records. It was 
no more a butchery than was Ther- 
mopylae. It was a battle — a mistaken 
one, but nevertheless a battle fought 
tactically and with intelligence on Cus- 
ter's part. We talk of Balaklava and 
its records of heroism, but of the Six 
Hundred of the Light Brigade who 
charged the Russian batteries on that 
day more than one-half returned un- 
scathed. Two hundred and sixty rode 
with Custer and two hundred and sixty 
died overwhelmed. With the last shot 
was silence. The report might have 
been written: — "None wounded; none 
missing ; all dead." No living tongue 
of all that heroic band was left to tell 
the story. 



As to the duration of the battle little 
is known. One Indian told Scout Camp- 
bell that the fight lasted about as long 
as it takes a hungry Indian to eat his 
dinner, and another said that it lasted 
as long as a candle would burn about 
a quarter of an inch. From this it is 
inferred that the struggle lasted about 
twenty-five minutes. And every man 
fought. The empty shells from the car- 
bines found around the field showed that 
every trooper fought fiercely and followed 
his leader. At one part of the field where 
Custer's detachment first became heavily 
engaged, I saw a hundred yards across a 
ravine a little white stone telling where 
a trooper's body had been found. It was 
far from the other fallen comrades, and 
as horribly lonely as all these white 
stones seemed this one was sadly so. 

There is no evidence that anybody 
else tried to get away. Near the high 
ground and not far from where the 
monument stands, the body of Kellogg, 
special correspondent of the New York 
Herald, was found. He was bravely 
following the gallant Custer and the 
guide points out the little wooden slab 
which marks the spot, for he died like 
a hero, too, in the line of his duty. 



It will always be an open question 
whether Major Reno purposely failed 
Custer or erred on the side of caution. 
He knew that his chief had set out to 
attack the foe and he should have been 
ready to lend assistance. It is claimed 
by many that he might have heard the 
firing. I do not think so. The forma- 
tion of the hills would have prevented 
that. Had Custer had a couple of pieces 
of light artillery he might have notified 
Reno that the fight was on, but owing 
to the bad roads he carried no artillery. 
There was no volley firing and the 
Indians did no more shooting than was 
necessary, for they didn't want to kill 
or wound the horses, which they coveted. 

As I stood on this field, which will 
ever cradle the memory of Custer and 
his glorious band — the great brown hills, 
flooded with sunlight and the silence as 
oppressive as the mystery which sur- 
rounds their deaths — I tried to form 
some idea of the awful sensation which 
must have come to each of these brave 
fellows when he realized the sickening 
horror of the situation on that dread 
day. That death awaited every man 
was evident after the first ten minutes. 
But my eyes rested on the little white 



marble sentinels which marked the 
steady, compact advance, and on every 
hero's cenotaph I seemed to see carved 
the word, " Duty." 

The lesson is there for all who may 
read — a lesson which will be ever re- 
membered by the brave men of our 
regular army. There is not a trooper 
who follows a guidon of the Seventh 
to-day who does not feel proud of the 
little band which rode to death fighting 
heroically on those barren hills. The 
requiem of the winds over the graves 
there can never be sadder than on that 
golden evening when I turned my back 
upon this battlefield, at once the most 
pathetic and most myterious of all that 
our sun shines on. — John A. Cockerill, 
in the New York Herald. 

DETAILS OF THE BATTLE. 
Date —June 23, i8~b. 

Duration. — Unknown ; believed to be from 1 p.m. 
to 4.30 p. m. According to Chief Gall, who 
commanded the Indians, it lasted from noon 
to sunset; but this statement is not credited. 

Loss. — Major-General Custer and 260 officers and 
men. 

No. of Indians killed, 42 

Xo. of Indians who took part in the battle, 4,300 



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or for information about rates, trains or other 
matters pertaining to the Burlington Route's 
service, write to any of the following represent- 
atives of the Passenger Department : 

Atchison. Kan., - - - H. B. Segur, General Agent 
Billings. Mont., W. W. Johnston, Commercial Agent 
Boston, Mass., 306 Washington St., 

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L. W. WAKELEY, GEO. P. LYMAN, 

Gen'l Pass'r Agent, Gen'l Pass'r Agent, 

St. Louis, Mo. St. Paul, Minn. 

P. S. EUSTIS, J. FRANCIS, 

Gen'l Pass'r Agent, Gen'l Pass'r Agent, 

Chicago, 111. Omaha, Neb. 

RD 1 2.8 



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